“My back is so big!”
“We are becoming great people right now!”
Welcome to the latest idiom among teenage girls — a TikTok trend that has become a new language of casual jokes, constantly used to mock each other and themselves for eating.
And while many teens say the term is meant to be playful, others admit they find it hurtful, or at least offensive. Experts find the explosion of this type of slang alarming.
“This is everyone’s problem,” he said. Zoe Bisbingbody image and Eating disorder psychotherapist. “This has a lot to do with the anti-fat bias that is so deeply ingrained in our culture, which sees microaggressions toward fat people as normal.”
However, the problem becomes more complicated when these jokes are created by skinny girls themselves.
“With this new language, they allowed each other to comment not only on weight but about eating it itself. So there’s nothing good about this,” Barbara Greenberga Connecticut-based adolescent and youth therapist who is familiar with the term, recounts Luck. “It’s going backwards.”
Chanea Bondsa Texas high school English teacher and educational influencertold Luck She was puzzled to see the trend accelerate before the summer. “It started this school year. At first, it was mostly students calling themselves. But now ‘big back’ has become so common in their language, they say it whenever they eat. Also, ‘You’re a fat person.’ ‘Fat’ is definitely back,” she said. “I really wish it would go away.”
Bond never felt that more true than earlier this week, when her 6-year-old daughter came home from daycare and asked, “Mummy, do I have the biggest back?” After some digging, Bond learned that her teacher had told her daughter she had the “biggest back” after asking for extra cookies at snack time.
“I asked if it hurt her feelings. I told her that her body was fine, and if she wanted to eat more snacks, she was allowed to eat more snacks without anyone commenting on her body,” said Bond, who shared talk to her daughter on Xhas reached more than 1.3 million views, receiving a lot of supportive feedback.
This whole ‘big back’ thing is fatphobia. My 6 year old coming home and asking if he has the ‘biggest back’ because he wants extra cookies at snack time is NOT cute or funny.
It’s time to end it.
— Crazy Woman in Class (@heymrsbond) July 10, 2024
She noted that the young teacher—who Bond was planning to talk to about the situation—was probably not much older than her student. “I don’t think she meant to be hurtful,” she said. But it showed Bond that the trend, while she hoped it might subside by summer, “is definitely still very much alive.”
The Meaning of “Big Back” and Other Terms—and How We Got Here
As with so many worrying trend, The latest form of fat language can be traced back to TikTok—specifically, the “big back” video trend (currently with over 174 million posts) appears to have peaked in the spring. It involves sharing videos with one of two themes: 1) showing yourself eating a lot or someone else eating a lot (usually someone who is thin) with commentary about the behavior being “big-backed” or 2) stuff your clothes to make your back (or even baby‘S) appear larger and then either run for food or, again, just Eat.
Those videos in turn led to criticism of the trend, with some calling it “fat people mocking” And “create new insecurity.” Then the videos appeared. mock the trend total.
But what does “big back” actually mean? That’s where things get complicated, as many have noted that the term and possibly the trend originated in African-American English (AAE) and in black online spaces. But the trend is “pretty new, so there hasn’t been a lot of research done on it,” says Kimberley Baxter, a PhD candidate in linguistics at New York University who specializes in AAE.
The term originated in “the black community in London, meaning ‘derrière’ in a positive sense,” and it only became negative through appropriation, says NYU linguistics professor Renee Blake.
Baxter theorizes that “big back” has become “a term used to refer to all fat people, but also to refer to people with prejudices related to obesity,” and that it has a connection to the term “bad construction” as well as the old school “built like a fullback.” She observed that it has been promoted on social media recently in part because react to a popular TikTok Series via Reese Teesa.
Its origins have prompted some—including a passing therapist—to Therapy Dojo on TikTok—saying that the current use of “big back” amounts to “cultural appropriation” and could make white criticism of the trend seem like “policing black culture.” That’s despite the therapist’s belief that the term is, in fact, “totally fear of obesity“ .
Lizzo even consideredcalled the trend “horrible because it’s fatphobic”, but noted that the term was just “something black people say” and it wasn’t until it “became a trend” that it “got out of control”, with people using it “in harmful ways”.
This nuance is why Bisbing says she considers “big back” and “fat” to be “two separate phenomena.”
However, according to teens across the country, “big back” is now used interchangeably with other current terms in the field, including “fat” and “big.”
“‘Big-back’ is something you say to your friends while they’re eating, like, ‘Oh, you have such a big back, you ate four cookies!’” F., a 16-year-old in New Jersey, recalled. Luck. (The young people in this article are referred to by their initials to protect their privacy.) “People only say it when someone is eating. But you would never call your overweight friend ‘big back.’” She feels its rise in popularity may be due to a “backlash” to the body positivity movement, noting, “Like, it’s okay to look like Lizzo, but then suddenly it’s not okay.”
“I think people say it in a flippant way,” said S., 17, of Massachusetts. “I’ve never heard them say it to insult people. It’s more of a self-deprecating joke.”
S., 17, of Rhode Island, agrees. “I definitely think it could be harmful to some people, but for me, I just think it’s funny. I definitely wouldn’t say it to an actual fat person,” she says, “but I’ve heard other people say it.” [do that]“ .
L., 16, from Connecticut, explains, “We say, ‘Hey, fat,’ like you say, ‘You’re stupid.’ It’s an insult but it’s playful, you know what I mean? I often say, ‘I’m being over-supported right now,’ like if someone offered me a piece of their lunch and I ate it all… It feels like a joke. But,” she adds, “in some ways, I guess it reinforces the stereotype mentally.”
That’s why the term obesity phobia worries experts
“There are a lot of layers to this, as there has been a movement to reclaim words like ‘big’ or ‘fat,’ to use them as neutral descriptors for people who have strong feelings about fat positivity,” the educator and parent coach notes. Oona Hansenwho helps families combat diet culture. Instead, the terms are used as insults that mock someone’s size or appetite. “That tends to reinforce the idea that if you have a larger body, you’re always consuming large amounts of food. It reinforces the notion of gluttony.”
She added that the majority of “thin white women” is no coincidence, given “the context of diet pills and people not having appetites, and the connection between appetite and body size. I think that really reinforces harmful ideas about both body size and food, and makes it socially acceptable to comment on people’s bodies.”
Greenberg worries that it could encourage secret eating in teenage girls. “It increases feelings of low self-esteem, feelings of shame and social awkwardness,” she says.
Bisbing believes this trend highlights that “fatphobia and anti-fat bias are still widely accepted.”
And while it’s “an issue for everyone,” she says, “where I see this really damaging to teens is where there’s a group of friends with a small number of kids who are larger in body type… Because language used in this playful way is going to impact a kid who’s actually obese very differently.”
She added that using this language “almost creates invisibility for the actual fat kid in the group—and then it’s over-prominent.”
Ultimately, this is harmful because children who are not larger in stature often do not subtly express that they will never want to be—essentially saying, with a “big back,” “‘We try not to be that way,’” Bisbing explains, whereas, “‘I’m so fat’ is like, ‘That’s a disgusting thing. Ugh, look at me!’”
“I think everyone is harmed by this speech because it perpetuates a cultural norm that makes it really difficult for everyone to establish emotional safety,” she said. “So I worry more about the collective harm, whether they know it or not — and they don’t know it — that contributes to a culture of oppression.”
How to address the potential harm this trend can cause your child
Bisbing notes that, in an ideal scenario, you’d have a lot of “values-driven conversations about body oppression in our culture,” and says, “I don’t think this is a one-time conversation for a family or parent.”
If not, she says, it can be a conversation starter—and an opportunity not only to address this particular technical term but also to emphasize that this is just one example of a social problem.
And remember, she suggests, “when you have a teenager, you don’t have control over what they say.” But it might be worth rolling your eyes and maybe listening to you on some level if you say, “I just want to let you know: This is so oppressive. Even though your friends are laughing, I bet they’re suffering inside.” Make it clear that you’re not going to lecture, but point out that this issue is about feminism, anti-racism, and social justice in general.
“Find the dots between this stupid trend and the terrible level of oppression it causes, and help them connect the dots,” she said.
Hansen suggests approaching your teen or tween with curiosity, perhaps saying, “Tell me more about this trend. How are your friends using it? Do you think they feel the same way?”
With a child who might be really upset about it, help them talk it through and figure out how they want to respond the next time someone throws the term around. “I think teens have better ideas than we do, generally,” she says. It’s also helpful not to overreact or discourage them if they come to you with the issue, because they probably won’t come to you next time.
In short, Hansen says, “For parents, this is an opportunity to think about how you build your child’s skills in navigating awkward social conversations and social media. It will continue to evolve, but it’s really about, can you connect with your child? Can you have a conversation that sparks critical thinking?”
